[lit-ideas] Dinner Talk

 
In a message dated 7/29/2004 7:06:59 PM Eastern Standard Time,  
erin.holder@xxxxxxxxxxx writes:
Then  again, who really wants to 
read a book called Dinner Talk:  Cultural  Patterns of Conversation 
(something 
like that) anyway?  
 
 
-----
 
I think that's Deborah Tannen? 
 
I like her quite a bit (+> a lot).
 
Matter of fact, have her book on the study (based on her PhD)  of a  
four-participant Thanksgiving Dinner she recorded (she included) where she  
reanalyzes 
the Gricean 'boys' versus the 'Strawsonian' girls:
 
Female conversationalists -- in that Thanksgiving Dinner -- as I recall,  
work, for Tannen, along Strawson's lines of 'existence presupposition' (the old 
 
dilemma of whether the king of France _can_ be bald if he doesn't exist).  
Gricean males, on the other hand, can implicaturally speak (to no end) of  
nonexistent entities and _with a straight face_ over turkey and  desserts. Made 
for 
an interesting read.
 
Tannen later went on to analyse how race influences everthing: anglos (or  
'Anglo's', as Geary would not write it) converse mainly in English -- and use  
'understatement' as _the_ major implicature -- while other races converse in  
other 'languages' (and can be much more explicit -- e.g. the French).
 
Tannen contributed an essay to _Legacy of Grice_ published by the Berkeley  
Linguistics Society.
 
Cheers,
 
JL






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